People in recovery talk about the benefits of transcendental mediation, counting days, and daily journaling, but hidden behind all this self-improvement jargon stands an unsung hero; a man who only gets fall-down, black-out, shit-faced drunk on weekends, and lives the rest of the week as a functioning member of polite society.
Part-time drunk and full-time icon, David Nevins, is living, breathing, dry-heaving proof that yes, we do recover. Every single week, for the last ten years, he has spent Monday through Thursday nursing himself back to health after going on heinous weekend benders that begin the moment he clocks out on Friday and last until Sunday evening. If that’s not recovery, I don’t know what is. Relapse can be one of the biggest teaching moments in sobriety, which is why he’s just as committed to his relapse as he is to his recovery.
His ability to switch between party mode and work mode is the stuff of superheroes. Would anyone care about Superman if he wasn’t out on nights and weekends wrecking cars, causing havoc, and having unprotected sex? Not a chance. He’d just be another underpaid journalist on the brink of divorce known to his coworkers as the guy who keeps to himself and microwaves fish in the breakroom.
Remember the saying, “Everything in moderation?” Well, that also includes moderation.
Positive affirmations like, “One day at a time,” can be helpful, but only if those days are relegated to weekdays, with the exception of holidays, birthdays and the occasional hump day. If you binge-drink any less than two days a week you run the risk of hanging out with people who talk about their favorite flavored seltzers at parties, or turning into the guy who orders an $18 sage-infused mocktail called “The Citrus Fizz” at dinner.
What some may see as a double life, others see as balance. What some may perceive as weekend alcoholism, others view as weekday sobriety. So what if he keeps an emergency Tito’s nip in his desk drawer? So what if he finds a little baggy in his coat jacket with coke residue still clinging to the sides and gums it in the workplace bathroom? Sometimes a little bit of drugs and alcohol are all it takes to get through those rough patches of sobriety.